Valenti­no Singh

Unit­ed States coach Ju­r­gen Klins­man ex­pects his team to be up against a very com­pet­i­tive Trinidad and To­ba­go So­ca War­riors when the teams meet for their sec­ond round World Cup qual­i­fy­ing match at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, from 7.36 tonight.

The Amer­i­cans are com­ing off a 6-1 thump­ing over St. Vin­cent and the Grenadines in their open­er last Fri­day while the So­ca War­riors beat Guatemala 2-1 in Guatemala City, as both teams made win­ning starts to their cam­paigns.

The So­ca War­riors will be brim­ming with con­fi­dence fol­low­ing their away vic­to­ry and af­ter their fi­nal prepa­ra­tion late yes­ter­day evening, coach Stephen Hart not­ed that all his play­ers were in good health and were ready to take on the Amer­i­cans.

"Every­one's healthy and that's a big thing for us this time. We have switched our fo­cus to to­mor­row's match and our prepa­pra­tions were spe­cif­ic to that over the past few ses­sions."

The War­riors can ex­pect a sea of red at the Sta­di­um tonight as TTFA of­fi­cials re­vealed yes­ter­day that tick­ets for the cov­ered stands were all sold out while there were just a few re­main­ing for the un­cov­ered area.The lo­cal team will be look­ing to lev­el the play­ing field with the Amer­i­cans, hav­ing won just three of the nine match­es played at the Sta­di­um since 1982.

All nine pre­vi­ous match­es have been de­cid­ed by a goal or less, with the most in­fa­mous be­ing the No­vem­ber 19, 1989 0-1 loss which earned the Amer­i­cans a place in the Italy fi­nals of 1990, when T&T need­ed just a draw to reach the World Cup fi­nals for the first time.

Klins­man said yes­ter­day that his play­ers re­spect­ed the T&T team. "They're a good team, but our team is good as well. We want to come here and show them that we're able to get three points or at least a tie and move on out of our group

"The fact they got a win in Guatemala City is huge for them," said Klins­mann. "It gives them a good feel­ing go­ing up against the Unit­ed States. We have to be pre­pared for that � it's one of the rea­sons we came to Trinidad & To­ba­go ear­ly. We flew right af­ter our game all the way from St. Louis down to Port of Spain to be pre­pared. We'll be pre­pared for the cli­mate and we'll be pre­pared for a very phys­i­cal bat­tle."

While Klins­mann has nev­er faced the Caribbean na­tion, he gave cred­it to their growth over the past year in bol­ster­ing the over­all strength of the CON­CA­CAF re­gion.

"They played a very good Gold Cup and al­so had some good re­sults in friend­lies and oth­er test games," he said. "You have to give Trinidad & To­ba­go a lot of re­spect. They're known for their phys­i­cal game and known for be­ing strong. A lot of their play­ers play in the Eng­lish Cham­pi­onship and ob­vi­ous­ly play­ing at home they have a lot of con­fi­dence, and they want to prove to the world that they're a good team. Over the years they've im­proved them­selves on the tech­ni­cal side and on the men­tal side as well."

Like their man­ag­er, most of the cur­rent 23-man ros­ter has nev­er faced T&T, with on­ly Jozy Al­ti­dore, Michael Bradley, Tim Howard and Michael Oroz­co see­ing time against the So­ca War­riors pre­vi­ous­ly. While they're some­what of an un­known for most of the squad, Klins­mann says the team will be pre­pared for a stiff test.

USA vs T&T Match­es in Port of Spain

Date Re­sult Com­pe­ti­tion

March 21, 1982 2-1 L Friend­ly

Nov. 19, 1989 1-0 L WCQ

Nov. 18, 1990 0-0 D Friend­ly

Nov. 19, 1994 0-1 W Friend­ly

Nov. 24, 1996 1-0 L WCQ

Nov. 11, 2001 0-0 D WCQ

Feb. 9, 2005 2-1 L WCQ

Oct. 15, 2008 1-2 W WCQ

Sept. 9, 2009 1-0 L WCQ

T&T Squad: Jan-Michael Williams, Mar­vin Phillip, Daneil Cyrus, Justin Hoyte, Car­lyle Mitchell, Shel­don Bateau, Radan­fah Abu Bakr, Yohance Mar­shall, Mekell Williams, Aubrey David, An­dre Bou­caud, Khaleem Hy­land, Ke­van George, Ne­veal Hack­shaw, Trevin Cae­sar, Cordell Cato, Jo­evin Jones, Lester Pelti­er, Keron Cum­mings, Ken­wyne Jones (cap­tain), Willis Plaza, Jonathan Glenn.

US Squad: Jody Al­ti­dore, Ven­tu­ra Al­vara­do, Kyle Beck­er­man, Matt Besler, Michael Bradley, Ge­off Cameron, Mix Dis­cerud, Alan Gor­don, Brad Guz­man, Bill Hamid, Tim Howard, Miguel Ibar­ra, Fabi­an John­son, Jer­maine Jones, Matt Mi­az­ga, Jor­dan Mor­ris, Dar­ling­ton Nagbe, Michael Oroz­co, Brek Shea, Tim Ream, Bob­by Wood, De­an­dre Yed­flin, Gyasi Zardes.